5mo ago

She said no: marriages in China plummet to record low

www.theguardian.com

Summary

China's marriage rate hit a record low in 2024, with only 6.1 million marriages, a 20% drop from 2023 and the lowest since records began in 1986.

Rising costs, youth unemployment, changing gender roles, and a growing preference for single life contribute to the trend. Government incentives to boost marriage and birth rates have largely failed.

Social attitudes are shifting, with less family pressure to marry, skepticism over restrictive divorce laws, and calls for same-sex marriage recognition.

Experts warn this decline could accelerate China’s demographic and economic challenges.

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Many commenters also cited the controversial introduction of a divorce cooling-off period in 2021, making them wary of the “easy entry and strict exit” for marriage.
I had missed the introduction of this in 2021.
"The law requires couples who are mutually seeking a divorce to wait for 30 days before formalising it. If the couples don’t show up for two appointments between 30 and 60 days after applying, their application is automatically cancelled."
"In February Chinese media reported fully booked appointment slots in Shenzhen, Shanghai and other cities, with some being sold by scalpers."
source
That would certainly be a disincentive to get married if you could not get out of it if you needed to.
- They reward increasing the number of people who are formally married, rather than the number of stable couples.
  Such a wonderful example of misaligned incentives, only a politician could come up with it.
- In the great state of Wisconsin, there is a 120 day waiting period after filing and paying the Clerk of the Circuit Court. After the 120 days then you can obtain a date for a final court hearing before it becomes legally accepted
  So it could be much worse. It could be Wisconsin
  
  Does Wisconsin require showing up for two or more “appointments” during those 120 days?
  
  1 year here in Germany lol
  
  North Carolina, it is a year.
  
  It's wrong, but I don't see it as a big deal either. If someone is escaping an abusive marriage, and can escape, being legally married carries no weight. And that's the worst case scenario.
  Ex and I split amicably (mostly), went our separate ways. We were married for a couple of years afterwards because we were too lazy to pull the trigger.
  Are there situations where waiting 4-months hurts someone?
- Any system is bad when scalping becomes a thing.
There are some rumours about this. A lot of women and their families expect the husband to have a car, house, well paying job and paying a five figure (in USD) bridal price, while preferably be below 30 years. With the economy as it is, few men qualify. It's also expected from a lot of men to give his complete wage to the wife. Government goes along with that, and flavors the women in a divorce. Turns out a lot of guys just say f this, and don't get married anymore.
- Without mentioning "China" in your body, I feel like this comment could be pasted under low romance rates happening across a dozen countries.
- So neither men nor women want to get married under the currebt circumstances.
- The men are also very picky. ~~Women outnumber men,~~ (Wrong. Men outnumber women by, like, a lot. Don't ask where I got that from) but they are also looking for a certain age, body type, and background. People are even buying/kidnapping little girls to raise as brides for their sons so they can mold them versus just finding a bride. Half of the time, they don't want the women available. They're too old, too fat, too ugly, divorced, have kids, outspoken, and all the other things that they've been conditioned to dislike. Also, a lot of women have rough married lives over there.
  Women also belong to the groom's family in a way. If you "only" have a daughter, you really have one shot (and a clicking clock) for both you and her to pick the "best" family. Society has made it to where a woman is expected to serve her household and handle whatever they throw at her, but then punish them for wanting to pick the cage they're locking themselves into. Like, yeah, if it's super hard to get divorced, let alone marry again, and the man/family I'm marrying has a lot of power over me, and I'll be under the households thumb, I'm going to at least make sure I'm take care of. If their society was more equal, I think they'd be able to marry more for love/desire/want than security. But women over there don't get a lot of agency so they take it where they can.
  Bith sides are saying "fuck it." Men don't want to be wage slaves and women don't want to be indentured bang maids.
  
  Women outnumber men
  Wait, did the topic of the conversation change? Because China absolutely does not have more women than men.
  
  If their society was more equal, I think they’d be able to marry more for love/desire/want than security.
  They'd have that possibility, but in at lot of western countries where that possibility is larger marriage rates are lower than in China.
Experts warn this decline could accelerate China’s demographic and economic challenges.
I'll say it again. The labor market is a market.
Lower supply ==> higher price.
In the context of the labor market: Fewer workers ==> higher wages. That is good for the workers.
- Historical example of: fewer workers -> better conditions. https://historycollection.com/4-reasons-black-death-wasnt-bad/
  
  That's a very interesting read. Thank you.
- Old people is where that gets messy. But it's absolutely true
  
  Old people is where that gets messy
  ... as long as you assume that retirement has to be paid for by the worker's taxes.
  Rich taxes would solve the problem well enough, i think.
Inb4 China stops reporting this. Just like they did with youth unemployment
- Or the democracy protests, pre-covid
I had a Chinese colleague who was in a "relationship" with her idol and thought it was way more convenient than a real partner. I am fully ready to see people be openly happy with AI partners and never try to have real partners.
Especially because it's hard to have a social life when you're asked to work 9am to 9pm, 6 days a week, or worse. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/996_working_hour_system
Births are tightly linked to marriage in China, with childbearing out of wedlock discouraged by traditional values and various government regulations.
“Various government regulations”? Damn, dude. Like what? Maybe easing up on those regulations would help the birth rate a bit.
Well yeah, who wants to put a Chinese kid through what their parents have to live through?
Boost birth rates? Sure.
Boost marriage? Uh why? You can do all the things without a piece of paper.
- Being economically leftist doesn't mean you aren't culturally conservative. Births out of wedlock in China and really most of east Asia are exceedingly rare. The household registration system they use to allow families access to things like education and healthcare is tied into marriage certificates.
- We need fewer people.
  
  It would be good to back that up with actual arguments.
There was this experiment with a rat city that showed behavioral changes in large populations. Coupled with lack of child and aged care in China, completely unsurprising that this would happen.
Additionally, when you have digital boyfriends like Love and Deepspace, who can blame the ladies for wanting something low effort and convenient?
- Who could ever ever ask for more?
  Love without complications galore.
Ah the millennial sexual revolution.
But for real, Chinese people are just people but in China. Some of their conditions are different like the gender disparity but many are similar
Maybe people should look into human trafficking into "bride" by Chinese with unfortunate women from neighbouring countries.
Even after giving birth to male child, some women are sold to next man in line. Quite a fuckery ignored by CCP.
Good, weddings are a stupid human invention.

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